6 Companies That Make Money Solving Problems (They Made Up)

They say that sex sells, but when it comes to sales techniques, sex has nothing on fear. Huge swaths of our economy operate entirely on scaring people into giving up their money. And the worst part? A lot of the time their product is worthless.

So keep an eye out for companies like...

#6. FreeCreditReport.com

The Paranoia:

Quick question: How many times today has somebody asked you what your credit score is? Well, you're currently on the Internet, so it's probably somewhere around 400, usually by ads with sliding bars on them. We admit, your credit score determines some rather important factors in your life, such as how easily you can get a loan, or buy a house, or if that cute girl in the pop-up ad will go out with you.

She won't.

The Pitch:

According to FreeCreditReport.com, it's even worse than that: the ads say if you have a bad credit report, you'll wind up working in a seafood restaurant somehow. Even if it's due to "some hacker" stealing your identity. They're not the only website offering to give you your credit score, but FreeCreditReport.com is by far the most famous, maybe because of the way they carpet bomb the airwaves with an annoying jingle about how screwed you will be if you don't visit their website:

Holy shit, your whole career down the toilet, just because you didn't have the basic business skills to know a deal when you see one! Here's another one from them saying identity theft can keep you from ever owning a car, here's another one threatening you'll wind up working as a waiter if you don't subscribe to their service. On top of the fact that they're using goofy jingles to cover for a ludicrous threat, if you work in the food service industry these ads must royally piss you off. They threaten people that if they don't sign up for their service, they'll wind up like you.

Otherwise, they're pretty up front about what they do, right? Hell, it's right in the name? You head to their website and see your credit score for free. If it's good, then awesome; if it's bad, then... well, they're actually not very clear on what you're supposed to do then, but at least you know, right? And it didn't cost you a dime!

The Problem:

If you go to FreeCreditReport.com expecting a free credit report, you're in for a rather big surprise. What you're actually getting is a free seven-day trial for a credit monitoring service, which they're more than happy to renew automatically, at a rate of $14.95 a month. Not only that, but they're only sponsored (read: operated) by one of the three credit monitoring bureaus, Experian, so it's more or less impossible to get any complete credit information from them no matter what you do.

It's like ordering fries off the dollar menu, only they cost $15 and are a pumpkin.

This is all written up on their website, of course, in eye-catching blue text on a blue background in the lower left, so if you do sign up for it then you really have nobody but yourself to blame. Nah, we're just kidding, the FTC totally shoved a nightstick up Experian's ass, forcing them to pay $950,000 back in 2005.

Make a clever jingle about that, you bastards!

Speaking of which, you may also have noticed that their site now greets you with a gigantic disclaimer at the very top that the government forced them to put up there. Undeterred, they simply changed their name to FreeCreditScore.com, offered the same deal, only without the warning, with a brand new round of annoying ads to push it.

The amazing thing is, you can get your credit report completely free at AnnualCreditReport.com. You can do this once a year, which may not sound like much, but your credit score really doesn't change very rapidly. And no, there's nothing an identity-stealing hacker can do that will force you to serenade tourists at Captain Jack's Fish & Chips.

#5. Gold Vendors

The Paranoia:

If you listen to talk radio, particularly the right-wing kind, you've heard all about gold. In these uncertain economic times, what with terrorism and communists in the White House, gold is the safest investment there is! Glenn Beck is all about gold; he'll do entire segments about the impending collapse of our economy, and between you'll hear advertisements from companies like Goldline International.

The claim is that once the economy collapses, all those precious dollars that you've been holding onto in the bank will be completely worthless. $34.76 down the drain, just like that. That's why the price of gold is skyrocketing! Better get in while you can!

Wait! Don't eat that solid gold egg just yet!

The Pitch:

Thankfully, companies like Goldline have your back. They'll take that potentially worthless money of yours and exchange it for precious metals, like gold and silver. Once the shit hits the fan and the world turns into Mad Max, it's cold, hard, silver and gold that people are going to be clamoring for, instead of worthless, green, cocaine-laced slips of paper.

The Problem:

Wait a second. If paper money is about to become worthless, why does Goldline accept it as a form of payment? Their whole business model is based on convincing us gold will be the only valuable means of exchange, while at the exact same time they're giving away all of their valuable gold and absorbing as much worthless cash as they possibly can.

Goldline is apparently more charitable than most charities.

First of all, gold usually isn't that great of an investment--ask anybody who bought some in 1981 and then lost half their money when its value plummeted for the next two decades. Sure, the value of gold is sky-high right now. And as the real estate market demonstrated, if something is highly valued right now, that means it will eventually keep rising and rising forever and ever! So what do you think it means when the professionals start trying to convince uneducated Glenn Beck fans to buy their gold? It means they're hoping you're stupid enough to be the one to get caught holding it when the bottom falls out. And if you really believe in the "collapse of society" stuff, what are you going to want more during an apocalypse: a big pile of gold, or some food? Unless the gold is that chocolate kind, you'll probably want to go with the latter.

This doesn't really help anybody.

The value of gold is just as arbitrary as paper money. If you want something to trade after the end of the world, stockpile cigarettes, bullets and toilet paper. Bling will not be a priority when the zombies come.

#4. Enzyte

The Paranoia:

According to penis scientists, a whopping 45 percent of men are dissatisfied with their size.

No amount of hand washing can cleanse a dick scientist's sense of shame.

The Pitch:

Following with the "it's not a lie if the commercial is silly" technique of the Free Credit Report folks, you have these ads showing a depressed husband and his bitter, unsatisfied wife, both equally unhappy about the laughable size of his manhood. Fortunately, the ads says there are completely safe herbal supplements like Enzyte, whose spokesman is so goddamn satisfied with the results that he's always smiling, because the only thing he can think about now is the baseball bat he's packing between his legs.

His smile says, "I have an obnoxiously large dong." But his eyes cry out for help.

In case anyone was wondering what "natural male enhancement" means, the ads give us a scene where Mr. Enzyte's swim trunks fall off, and the neighborhood ladies look on in amazement. And for just $99 a month, flashing your penis at the neighborhood women could also result in stunned silence.

The Problem:

Let's back up for a moment. Why do you want a bigger penis? To impress other dudes in the locker room? So you can wear bicycle shorts seven days a week with confidence? No, it's because you think you need it to pleasure sexual partners.

Well, stop worrying. While about half of men are unhappy with their size, only 15 percent of women say they have a problem with the size of their partner's brigadier general. Given that women are able to stretch and conform to most shapes and sizes, and that you've only got about three inches to go before you reach most of the major nerve endings, there's not much reason, physiologically, why a large member would be any better.

Most damning, though, is the fact that women aren't so concerned with how large it is, compared to what you do with it. If you really want to please your woman, you just need to learn some expert sex techniques.

As for Enzyte, you can probably guess that it doesn't actually have the ability to make your penis bigger (if it did, the company's profits would dwarf Exxon-Mobil and Wal-Mart combined). When the company got taken to court, one of the executives freely admitted that they may have stretched the truth a little, and by that he meant absolutely everything was a lie. The pills were endorsed by doctors who didn't exist, supported by statistics that weren't real and backed by a customer satisfaction survey that might as well have been taken from the activities page of Highlights magazine for how helpful it was.

Blatant false advertising is frankly a "Goofus"-esque atrocity.

While such a scam might have been enough for the average man, founder Steve Warshak took it to another level. Anyone who purchased Enzyte was enrolled into a "continuity program" without their knowledge, where they were continually charged and sent more Enzyte. Not only that, but canceling was purposefully made as difficult as possible; many men were told that they could not obtain a refund unless they got a doctor to verify that their penis was still laughably small. The man behind Enzyte, when all was said and done, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for "prey[ing] on perceived sexual inadequacies of customers."